Seven o'clock, wellies on, no list
The field team starts early. Someone asks the shop manager what is needed. The answer is a rough list from yesterday's memory: lettuce, a few bunches of beetroot, 'plenty of beans', spinach if there is any. The team picks, brings it up to the shop, and the day begins.
By noon on a warm Saturday, the lettuce has sold out and the beans have not moved. By Tuesday, there are crates of spinach going limp in the cool room because Monday was quiet. The veg box packers wanted chard, and nobody told the pickers. The pub asked for extra new potatoes, but that was mentioned to someone in the car park.
Why the morning pick is guesswork
The information needed to pick well exists, but it is spread across people and places. The shop knows what is left on the display. The cool room holds yesterday's surplus. The till knows what sold on the same day last week. The box scheme and trade customers have their orders. The field team knows what is ready. Nobody puts it together at seven in the morning.
- What is left in the shop and cool room is not counted before picking.
- Sales by day of the week are in the till, not in front of the pickers.
- Veg box and trade needs are mentioned verbally, or not at all.
- Weather changes demand for salads and barbecue veg.
- Picked produce has a short life, so over-picking goes straight to waste.
What guesswork picking costs
Over-picking is the more expensive mistake for a farm shop, because picked produce loses quality fast and the labour to pick it is already spent. Under-picking means empty display space at the busiest time of day, and an extra trip to the field that takes staff away from other work.
The veg box and trade side suffer too. When their needs are not in the morning pick, packers make do with substitutes or someone goes back out later.
There is a crop planning cost as well. Without a record of what was picked and what sold, you cannot see which crops are over-planted for the shop's real demand.
The morning picking list we build
- A quick evening count at closing, on a tablet, of what is left on the display and in the cool room for each crop, in crates, bunches or kilos.
- Expected sales for each crop for the next day, taken from your till's sales on the same day in recent weeks, adjusted for the weather forecast and any events you mark.
- Veg box packing needs and trade orders for that day, taken from the box system and trade order list.
- A picking list per crop: expected need minus what is left, rounded to the units the pickers use, with a note if the field team marked the crop as nearly finished or not ready.
- The list on the field team's phones before they start, with space to record what was actually picked and a note if a crop could not be picked.
- A record of picked, sold, sent to boxes and trade, and wasted for each crop, week by week.
| Input | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Left over from yesterday | Closing count on a tablet |
| Expected shop sales | Till history for that day, weather adjusted |
| Veg box needs | Box system for that packing day |
| Trade orders | Trade order list |
| What is ready | Field team's own notes |
The list is a suggestion. The field manager knows things the list cannot, such as a crop that will not hold another day or a field too wet to walk, and changes it freely.
A morning with the list
At closing, the shop assistant counts what is left in a few minutes. At seven the next morning, the field team opens the list: eight lettuces, not twenty, because the forecast is cool and there are plenty left; beans for the veg boxes and the pub; no spinach until tomorrow. They pick, record what they picked and bring it up.
By Friday afternoon, the shop manager can see the week's pattern and adjusts the weekend picking up for salads because the forecast is hot. At the end of the season, you can see how much of each crop was picked, sold and wasted, which goes into next year's planting plan.
Is your morning pick like this?
- Pickers work from a verbal list and a glance at the display.
- Some crops sell out by lunchtime while others wilt in the cool room.
- Veg box and trade needs are missed in the morning pick.
- Someone goes back out to the field most afternoons.
- You do not know how much picked produce was wasted last season.